The battle for overall victory in the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12 intensified on Sunday with the teams resuming their bids for supremacy as the sixth of nine legs got underway from Itajaí, Brazil, with PUMA at the front of the pack.

Just 32 points separate the top four teams as the fleet set sail for Miami -- and with 30 points up for grabs for a leg win, the race is still wide open.

PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG enjoyed the psychological advantage of leading the fleet around the short inshore course and out into the Atlantic but with 4,800 miles to sail, any of the five teams racing in Leg 6 could see victory come their way.

A win in Saturday's DHL In-Port Race Itajaí saw Groupama sailing team close the gap to overall frontrunners Team Telefónica to just 16 points, while CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand's second-place finish moved them to within 25 points of the leaders.

PUMA, just seven points behind CAMPER in fourth overall and with the incentive of racing to their home country, are also in the hunt after notching up yet another podium result in yesterday's inshore battle.

Riding on the high of winning Leg 5, PUMA skipper Ken Read said his crew were ready to get back to the race course.

"I don't want to jinx the fleet but it looks like we could have some really nice sailing," Read said. "It's potentially the first leg of this race that we can say that.

"It looks like we might get some downwind sailing out of Itajaí, we might get some nice trade wind sailing, and maybe some consistent wave patterns.

"Everyone's really psyched to go do some nice sailing."

Groupama skipper Franck Cammas, who has already tasted offshore victory in Leg 4, said he had high hopes for success in Leg 6.

"We can enjoy this leg a lot -- it has a lot of good conditions, a lot of reaching conditions," he said. "It's good for the crew, it's good for the boat. I think we can manage our Volvo Open 70 very well in these conditions."

Despite a disappointing result in the DHL In-Port Race Itajaí, Iker Martínez's Telefónica are the form team offshore with three leg wins from five.

"I hope this is going to be another good leg for us," Martínez said. "It looks like it's going to be interesting from beginning to end so we'll just have to see what the next few weeks hold.
"I'm very confident. The boat is even better than it was in New Zealand. We can't ask for more."

The Leg 6 start also saw a welcome return to offshore racing for Ian Walker's Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, who had to ship their yacht to Itajaí after it was damaged in the Southern Ocean.

The boat only arrived in Brazil on Thursday and the team's shore crew worked round the clock to give Walker's men a chance to compete for their first offshore leg win.

"Everything we know about is fully under control, so let's hope there aren't any things we don't know about," Walker said.

The first few days of the race could be crucial as the crews negotiate a potentially violent low pressure system lying in wait in the South Brazil Bight.

From there on in the sailing should mostly be downwind in moderate conditions -- although the teams will always be at risk from South Atlantic squalls.

The crews must also take on the Doldrums, a constantly-moving area of low pressure found a few hundred miles either side of the Equator, notorious for being one of the toughest regions on the planet to sail through.

Once into the northern hemisphere they will face tough tactical decisions, trading off distance for speed in the sprint past the Caribbean to the finish line.

The boats are expected to arrive in Miami around May 6.

Team Sanya, who pulled out of Leg 5 with boat damage, will rejoin the fleet in Miami after carrying out repairs in Savannah.

Tom Burton (AUS) and Alison Young (GBR) hit the right note in the Laser and Laser Radial at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne as they took out the top honours and qualification spots to the 2015 ISAF Sailing World Cup Final.

It was double Australian gold in the Paralympic classes. Matt Bugg (AUS) came out on top in the 2.4mR whilst London 2012 Paralympic SKUD18 gold medallists Dan Fitzgibbon and Liesl Tesch (AUS) were triumphant in the two person keelboat.

Lithuania's Juozas Bernotas came out on top in the Men's RS:X whilst Russia's Stefania Elfutina was triumphant in the Women's RS:X. Both sailors claim the first Abu Dhabi ISAF Sailing World Cup Final spots whilst Jock Calvert (AUS) and Joanna Sterling (AUS) picked up the Oceanic spots for the Emirati finale.

There was some fast paced action in the 49er and 49erFX Medal Races at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne as Nathan Outteridge & Iain Jensen (AUS) and Maia & Ragna Agerup (NOR) claimed the honours and Abu Dhabi final spots.

A tight group of five young Papua New Guinean (PNG) Laser sailors are stepping up their 2015 Pacific Games competition program using this week's ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne. PNG is one of 33 countries represented at the important Oceanic event, the largest Olympic sailing regatta in the southern hemisphere.

Melbourne, Australia will host the final Rio 2016 Paralympic Games qualification regatta in 2015. With just under one year until the event, the 2015 IFDS Worlds was launched at ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne.

ISAF Sailing World Cup Melbourne kick starts the journey to the 2015 ISAF Sailing World Cup Final in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates with qualification spots and top ranking points available in the Australian city.

Four boats in the Volvo Ocean Race celebrated rounding the venerated landmark of Cape Horn on Monday, a pleasure cruelly denied Dongfeng Race Team (Charles Caudrelier/FRA) after the Chinese boat's mast was broken early in a dramatic day on Leg 5.

The wind played dirty tricks all day in Palma on the sailors and race committees who had to juggle with big shifts and different pressure. From 4 to 20 knots, and reaching 40 in some gusts, the wind turned around the bay playing with everybody's nerves.

Ghosting across the line in the inky blackness of a Mediterranean spring night, finally slicing through the finish line set on the very waters where some 40 odd years ago he cut his teeth as a young, aspiring sailor harbouring great dreams, at 01:47:00hrs local time Guillermo Altadill and his talented, ever reliable Chilean co-skipper Jose Muñoz secured second placed in this third edition of the Barcelona World Race, the round the world race for two crew which left the Catalan capital on December 31st 2014.

Algoa Bay brought lighter conditions on Sunday, and after a postponement waiting for the wind to settle, the race got underway in 7 knots of breeze from the south-east. Ted Conrads and Brian Haines from the USA were the pathfinders, and opened up the gate for the fleet as they sailed out to the right-hand side of the course.